Genealogy, DNA for ancestry, Norfolk prehistory, and East Anglian archaeology. A private journal left open.

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Here I map the ancestral events as recorded on my Gramps genealogical database. These events can be baptisms, marriages, census records, etc. The larger the dot, the more events for that particular parish. I have modified images of Southern England from OpenStreetMap.org Copyright attribution-sharealike 2.0 generic.

My Mother's Ancestral Events.

This includes the recorded events for my mother's 134 recorded direct ancestors and siblings. As you can see, her known ancestry over the past 330 years has been incredibly localised! All English. All East Anglian. Almost entirely in Norfolk - with one line drifting back to nearby Suffolk. An incredibly dense cluster in East Norfolk, around the River Yare in Broadland. Sure enough second cousin and third cousin marriages have been detected in her tree.

My Father's Ancestral Events

This includes the recorded events for my late father's 116 recorded direct ancestors and siblings. A little more travelled over the past 330 years, although I feel that the ﻿events﻿ record has a bias in research to show this - as indeed, I estimate his known Norfolk ancestry over the past 330 years to amount to at least 70% of his combined heritage. Nonetheless, some of his lines trace back temporarily to London, then back mainly to Oxfordshire and the Thames Valley. All South-East English again.

None of this makes my family any more special than any other family anywhere else in the World, with any type of recent heritage and admixture. Indeed, the English are a particularly admixed population. However, in testing commercial DNA tests for ancestry, I feel that we offer a good reference sample of SE English, and even East Anglian Norfolk.

I'm particularly interested in how these commercial DNA companies are failing to discriminate ancient or population admixture, from recent (350 years) family admixture. Some populations they are able to detect with some certainty and accuracy. However, others such as the English, not at all. They are unable - despite their claims otherwise, to break recent autosomal admixture on lines over the past ten generations, from earlier, sometimes much earlier population admixtures.

I'm looking forward to seeing if the new Living DNA test fares any better, with it's rich British data set.